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Comment by burgerbrain | Hacker News Reader

Here's the thing: I don't hate hashbang URLs, I hate [site]'s use of hashbangs URLs. One example of [site] that stands out in particular is lifehacker. Why in the world does a blog need that? There isn't a good reason.

I don't think anybody opposes it in cases where it actually makes sense, but I assert that the dividing line is pretty clear.

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Do you mean the dividing line between web sites and web applications?

How would you categorise Flickr, or YouTube, or Wikipedia, or Yelp, or Lanyrd, or Craigslist - or pretty much any other UGC site? I'd argue that all of them could be described as both.

The distinction between web sites and web applications is not granular enough to make this decision. What you should be considering as a developer/designer of a web site/app is not about what bucket Flickr or YouTube or Yelp falls into, but what specific screens should be accessible with shebangs and which screens should not.

Flickr's photo indexes and Yelp's listings and reviews should probably be accessible via regular old URLs. But Flickr's uploader screen? Adding a new listing to Yelp? If you're ok with leaving behind users who have javascript turned off, it simply _does_ _not_ matter. In those cases, why not take advantage of the snappy UX that shebanged interfaces offer?

That's true, to a point. My principle objections to hashbang URLs is greatly reduced for pages which people are never intended to link to - private "edit" interfaces protected by a login are a prime example.

Personally I'm not OK leaving behind non-JS users in my own development, but provided a site's public pages are accessible I'm not too bothered what they're doing when people log in.

All of those are examples of websites that would or do suffer from excessive use of javascript.

I agree 100%.

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